Since 1978,
tetraethyl lead has no longer been added to gasoline as an anti-detonator.
Finally, to put the controversy to rest, the Surgeon General appointed an advisory committee, to conduct a definitive study and make recommendations regarding the production and sale of
tetraethyl lead. However, the study, which looked at the effect of TEL on workers who had occupational exposure to the substance, took only a few months, a period of time that would not allow the observation of long-term effects.
For lead, the authors present the history of
tetraethyl lead as a gasoline additive and white lead as a paint additive.
Tetraethyl lead has been added to petrol since the 1930s as an effective antiknock and also antiwear additive.
Tetraethyl lead was the invention of General Motors and produced by contract by DuPont and Standard Oil of New Jersey (which later became Exxon).
Just as workers began to receive protection, automobile companies added
tetraethyl lead (ethyl) to gasoline in order to eliminate engine knock.
For instance, Thomas Midgely invented
tetraethyl lead, which became an important ingredient of cheap, powerful gasoline.
Limited to t he twentieth century and a focus on lead-based paints and
tetraethyl lead in gasoline, the study is divided into three parts.
Tragically, as new fuels and emissions-control technologies are about to make the industrial world's vehicles even cleaner, much of the developing world is being poisoned the old fashioned way: by fueling their vehicles with gasoline containing
tetraethyl lead (TEL).
From 1926 to 1929, Imperial had a semi-exclusive right to the use of
tetraethyl lead in Canada as an additive to increase the octane rating of straight-run gasoline.
Far too many (underprivileged, often neglected) kids were absorbing disabling amounts of lead from paint chipped off woodwork inside and outside their old homes (as well as from
tetraethyl lead in gasoline).
Well-known studies by Herbert Needleman, a physician and statistician, of the correlation of lead deposits in children's teeth and the children's IQs resulted, eventually, in removal of
tetraethyl lead from gasoline in the U.S.